U.S. BEEF IS SAFE AND THE U.S. MEAT EXPORT FEDERATION IS   IN THE PROCESS OF...

U.S. BEEF IS SAFE AND THE U.S. MEAT EXPORT FEDERATION IS   IN THE PROCESS OF WORKING WITH TRADING PARTNERS WORLDWIDE TO ASSURE THEM THAT THEY HAVE EVERY REASON TO TRUST U.S. PRODUCTS AND U.S. SAFETY SYSTEMS. 

THAT’S ONE OF THE MAJOR POINTS FROM AN IN-DEPTH CONVERSATION WITH USMEF PRESIDENT AND CEO PHIL SENG, WHO SAYS THAT SINCE THE BSE CASE WAS ANNOUNCED ON DECEMBER 23RD, THE USMEF HAS BEEN WORKING AGGRESSIVELY TO GET U.S. BEEF EXPORT OPPORTUNITES RESTORED.

“We are working aggressively with our overseas offices and we have offices in 16 countries around the world and also consultants in many other offices and what we're working on is to try to resurrect the trade.  Since the announcement on the 23rd of BSE, we've had over 35 countries close their doors to us and that has affected us greatly because it constitutes close to about 95 percent of all of our total beef exports.” (:24)

SENG SAYS THE IMPACT OF THE CLOSING OF BEEF EXPORTS FOR U.S. BEEF PRODUCERS HAS BEEN DRAMATIC.

“I mean it's amazing.  I think a lot of people always questioned what was the value of exports to the industry?  I think the fact that you've had a 20 percent drop in prices within a matter of ten days, you know all but one day the market has gone down the limit, I think the impact of what exports means to this industry, you know it's profound.  And that's why we have to do every thing we can do to get back into these markets.” (:22)

SENG SAYS ONE OF THE MOST CRITICAL CONCERNS USMEF HAS NOW IS GETTING U.S. BEEF THAT HAS BEEN EN ROUTE TO FOREIGN MARKETS SINCE BEFORE THE BSE CASE WAS ANNOUNCED ACCEPTED, RATHER THAN RETURNED TO THE U.S.

“I think the shorter term solution that we’re now most concerned about is that we estimate there's close now to about two thousand two hundred containers of product which equates to about 45 thousand metric tons of product.  Which equates to about a quarter of a billion dollars that's either in customs storage or it is on the water, so this is major as far as industry concerned.  What we want to do is: all of this was checked, all of this product has been under the BEV program which was the Beef Export Verification program.  And we maintain that this product is totally safe because of all the safeguards and firewalls that are involved in this. So, we want to get this product released and we want to get that released this week.” (:43)

SENG SAYS USMEF AND THE U.S. GOVERNMENT ARE WORKING DILIGENTLY TO ADDRESS THE ISSUE OF THE MORE THAN 200 MILLION DOLLARS WORTH OF U.S. BEEF THAT WAS SHIPPED PRIOR TO DECEMBER 23RD.

“There's been already a team of USDA experts who've gone to Japan and Korea to prevail on the Japanese and the Koreans to open up their market.  They made their ban effective immediately as of the December 23rd date.  And, of course, what we are doing is to maintain this product was produced prior to finding a single BSE case in the U.S. And, all the firewalls and all the precautions for the prevention of BSE were applied to these products, so we are working on that.  There's a team of Japanese coming to Washington that will arrive here on Wednesday of next week.  And we're earnestly working in the industry and the government to try to try to resolve this issue.”  (:40)

LONG TERM, THE USMEF PRESIDENT SAYS INTERNATIONAL BORDERS MUST BE RE-OPENED TO U.S. PRODUCT AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE, ESPECIALLY IN LIGHT OF USDA RULE CHANGES AND OTHER INFORMATION THAT HAS BEEN UNCOVERED SINCE THE BSE CASE WAS ANNOUNCED.

“On the longer term, we have seen that the USDA here in the last week has announced a new rule as far as downer animals will be banned from the human food chain.  And animals tested will be held until the results are returned before that product would go into the food supply.  There's been new announcements on specific risk materials and that's been more uniformly defined.  And of course Advanced Meat Recovery, AMR, will not be allowed for animals under 30 months.  And so there's been a lot that's been done since this announcement. But what's most important is we recognize that this animal was born in Canada and it came from Canada so what we have here frankly is a case of Canadian BSE here in the United States.” (:35)

IN 2003, THE U.S. WAS ON TRACK TO SELL BEEF AND BEEF PRODUCTS VALUED AT MORE THAN $3.5 BILLION AND U.S. BEEF EXPORTS WERE EXPECTED TO GROW ANOTHER 5 TO 7 PERCENT IN 2004.  SENG SAYS ONCE ALL THE FACTS ABOUT THIS SINGLE CASE OF BSE ARE KNOWN, HE’S CONFIDENT U.S. BEEF EXPORTS WILL RESUME.

“Once we have the definitive word about those, the cattle from Canada.  I think the Japanese, the Koreans, the Mexicans they all would understand that basically what we have here in this country basically is a case of Canadian BSE here in the United States.  I think that soon after that, and with the additional steps that have been announced by the USDA, and also further steps that have been discussed and envisioned, I think we're going to be able to get back into these markets and hopefully it won't be too long.  I'm expecting it to happen sooner than later.” (:27)

SENG SAYS THE FACT THAT THIS SINGLE CASE OF BSE DID NOT ORIGINATE IN THE U.S. IS A MAJOR FACTOR.

  “I think that all the indicators at this point to the fact that this animal was born in Canada.  The indicators point out that this animal was 6-and a-half years old so that was born prior to the feed ban.  If that is the case, then we can definitively say that it was the feed that caused this.  The plant where the feed was formulated has been identified, the herd is being traced.  I think that once we have the traceability of the herd and we understand more fully from the Canadians what happened in that feed mill, I think that that should assuage the concerns of many of the consumers and also the governments worldwide that have banned our product. Obviously it's a major change, rather than having that being an indigenous case of BSE, this changes things dramatically as far as our industry is concerned.” (:47)

JAPAN HAS LONG BEEN THE NUMBER ONE FOREIGN MARKET FOR U.S. BEEF ON A VALUE BASIS, AND SENG SAYS RE-OPENING THE JAPAN MARKET IS KEY.

“When it comes to Asia, Japan is the largest market for us.  The Japanese have always been quite, have scrutinized everything.  I think once Japan would open up I think we could expect that other markets would follow that example.  So, we see Japan as being very, very critical. (:15)

SENG SAYS USMEF’S YEARS OF WORK IN JAPAN AND LONG STANDING RELATIONSHIPS THERE ARE PROVING VALUABLE IN THE EFFORT TO RESTORE THAT MARKET FOR U.S. BEEF.

“With the Japanese, you know 35 percent of their total beef consumption is derived from products produced in the United States.  So they heavily depend on our product and there's many, many industries in Japan whether it's in the food service, the retail, distribution and processing that depends heavily on our product.  Should that product be not allowed to go to Japan in the near future, we're looking at major, major traumatic events there as far as bankruptcies, many companies would be in ruins and so it's going to be very traumatic in Japan itself. As far as consumer reaction, we haven't seen a pronounced consumer reaction to this at this point in time.  Many of the stores that were carrying our product, they've maintained buying our product, because the trade in Japan understands the precautions we've taken to prevent BSE from occurring in this country.” (:48)

THE U.S. GOVERNMENT AND BEEF INDUSTRY HAVE, AS PARTNERS TO PREVENT BSE, WORKED AGGRESSIVELY FOR MORE THAN A DECADE TO PUT IN PLACE THE KEY ELEMENTS OF SURVEILLANCE, TESTING, FEED BANS AND OTHER FIREWALLS TO ASSURE UNQUESTIONED PRODUCT SAFETY.  NEW RULES AND PROTOCOLS ANNOUNCED BY USDA WILL SET THE BAR EVEN HIGHER.  SENG REPORTS THAT USMEF IS WORKING TO COMMUNICATE THESE ACTIONS TO FOREIGN MARKETS.

“MEF in all of these markets, we've been conducting very heavy PR, as far as elucidating to  consumers, and also to the trade, and also to the governments about our firewalls, the safety attributes of our product, all the prevention measures that we have in place.   We are informing these people daily.  In markets like Korea and Japan, major markets, we've been doing press releases that have been going out every day.  We're also working very, very closely with the governments in these markets.  Following their activities, following the issues.  So MEF has been working very assiduously to not only keep our people that are involved in this informed, but also informing the general public about the safety and assurances you have associated with U.S. beef.  And this has been an ongoing thing, we've always conducted public relations and advertising and communications in many of these markets and so what we are doing now is intensifying this obviously to bring the true picture about what's occurring here.”  (:60)

SENG SAID USMEF HAS PLEDGED ITS WORLDWIDE RESOURCES TO OVERCOMING THE CURRENT OBSTACLES SO IT CAN CONTINUE THE USMEF MISSION OF PUTTING U.S. MEAT ON THE WORLD'S TABLE.

THE U.S. MEAT EXPORT FEDERATION IS THE TRADE ASSOCIATION RESPONSIBLE FOR DEVELOPING INTERNATIONAL MARKETS FOR THE U.S.RED MEAT INDUSTRY AND IS FUNDED BY USDA, EXPORTING COMPANIES, AND THE BEEF, PORK, CORN, SORGHUM AND SOYBEAN CHECKOFF PROGRAMS.

-- USMEF --